Co. v. Gormully, 144 U.S. 224 (1892), was an early United States Supreme Court decision refusing, on public policy grounds, to enforce an agreement not to contest patent validity.

[1] The Supreme Court later relied on Pope in Lear, Inc. v. Adkins[2] as authority in support of overruling the doctrine of licensee estoppel.

Pope owned a large number of patents relating to bicycles, tricycles, and similar vehicles, which it licensed to Gormully.

The license agreement provided that Gormully could make bicycles of 52-inch size and larger, "of certain grades, style, and finish," to be sold at a specified price, and that Gormully, even after termination of the license, "would not manufacture, sell, or deal in bicycles, tricycles, or velocipedes containing certain features or devices covered by certain other patents" and would not "directly or indirectly, dispute or contest the validity of said letters patent.

Gormully argued, however, that this contract is objectionable as a restraint of trade, because it was "an attempt to fetter the defendant from importing or making bicycles, in which he might otherwise have a perfect right to deal, and thus foreclose himself from the ability to earn an honest living in his chosen calling."